


Time Machines

by TheMostePotente



Category: The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011), The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth - All Media Types
Genre: Absinthe, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Drug Addiction, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Opium, Steampunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2017-11-25 15:35:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/640377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMostePotente/pseuds/TheMostePotente
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It begins with a tear. Or rather, many of them. And a plea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Machines

**Author's Note:**

> Because I have a love of all things Victorian and steampunk and a strange new obsession with tear bottles. Also, this is not a happy fic. You have been warned.

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Time Machines

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:::::

It begins with a tear. Or rather, many of them. And a plea.

Esca reaches across the table for Marcus's hand. "Please," he begs. "Please, Marcus. Don't go where I can't follow."

Marcus can't meet Esca's eyes, so they see each other through touch.

The table of Esca's workshop is strewn with drug paraphernalia; a blood-smudged glass with the sickly green dredges of absinthe and a tincture of laudanum. 

While Esca chases hope, Marcus chases dragons. 

"Marcus," Esca says gently. "Look at me."

Marcus looks up, bleary-eyed. To his left are sets of blueprints - indecipherable scribblings that speak clearer the language of love than that of science. On his right sits the mechanical beast with its copper heart and its brass spine. It waits unfinished, puffs of steam spilling like laboured breaths. 

"Time yields for no man - unbending, unbreaking, stubborningly linear. No friendship exists between the triumvirate that is past, present and future."

Esca shakes his head. "You're wrong, Marcus. I can change this. I can change _us_. I just need more…"

"Time?" Marcus's laughter is brittle. The infection has spread. It moves in a northerly direction towards his heart, rampant, like a company of soldiers advancing on an enemy line. He moves his injured leg with a grimace, and uses the last of his strength to bring himself closer to Esca. 

More tears cloudy Esca's vision. "You were an exceptional soldier." 

Marcus smiles half-heartedly, and Esca knows that Marcus is too busy weighing the good and the bad of his deeds on the scale of justice for anything cheerier. The Boer war has made victims of them both.

"Esca," Marcus breathes. "You have to let me go."

Esca glimpses his machine. If a formula for bending light and folding space exists, it is not for him to know. He thinks not of the time taken but of the time given and reasons that must be enough.

Something in Esca breaks beyond repair - his heart, his spirit, his will, perhaps. He lets go with a nod because he has to. Because he loves too fiercely for anything less.

Marcus pinches the phial of laudanum between his thumb and index fingers. He'd use his flintlock, but it's taken far too many lives already. "You shouldn't be here for this, Esca."

"I shouldn't, but I must," Esca says. Marcus's hands are shaking so Esca assists. He's seen to Marcus's ills from the beginning. He's damned if he'll stop now. 

Marcus fills the syringe with a lethal dose and depresses the plunger, emptying into the tied-off vein. Time slows for a few heartbeats before all falls silent. Even the great beast of brass and copper stills; cogs grinding to a halt in sympathy. 

Marcus slumps back in his chair, 

"May you finally catch up to that dragon, my Marcus. _My centurion_." Esca stands with a pained sob and closes Marcus's eyes. He places two shillings over Marcus's lids for the journey beyond. 

From around his neck, Esca pulls the chain of a small bottle up and out. Not unlike the phial of poison, the lachrymatory serves as a denouement of grief, measured out in droplets.

He unstoppers the bottle and weeps openly, catching what falls down his cheek. 

Esca places it close to his heart after kissing the bottleneck. He will mourn Marcus until all of the tears have dried. And he knows. Undeniably, he knows. _We all have our time machines._

And as all things, it ends like it begins.

-=The End=-


End file.
